Glu Mobile, the developer of free-to-play mobile games, recently made the decision to lay off employees at two of its studios and close one studio entirely. Glu Mobile’s São Paulo studio in Brazil has been closed, its Washington studio has been reduced by 25% and its San Francisco workforce has been reduced by 5%. These layoffs occurred a little more than two weeks after Glu Mobile announced lower than expected earnings for the third quarter of 2012.

According to a Glu Mobile statement provided to GamesBeat, Glu Mobile stated it had to reduce its workforce in order to hold “total R&D investment flat between 2012 and 2013.”

During a conference call with investors at the beginning of November, Glu Mobile CEO Niccolo de Masi said Glu’s ability to attract talent was at an all-time high. Before that statement was made, Masi did indicate that Glu had begun rebalancing studio staff.

By keeping R&D costs steady, Glu hopes to improve the monetization strategy for its games and increase the amount of money the average player is willing pay.